


A Friend in Need

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Episode: s01e03 Carentan, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, The Angst Is Mainly About Penises, from a certain point of view, jsyk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 00:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20898803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Carwood is having trouble feeling himself again after his injuries in Carentan. Tab decides to help out.





	A Friend in Need

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the ever helpful ThillingDetectiveTales for beta reading and support.
> 
> Filling a Loose Lips Sink Ships prompt, as usual.
> 
> The incident with Malarkey mentioned is from Malarkey's book, more or less.

Carwood threw himself on his bunk and closed his eyes. His body was still shaking with the sick kind of anger that covered terror, but guilt was already starting to creep in. He was going to have to apologise. He'd do it once he calmed down and came up with an explanation that didn't make him sound like a coward.

The problem was that Carwood was a coward, and the reason he'd just about strangled Malarkey was that his attempted joke had come far too close to exposing that. If he didn't want the whole company to know that, Carwood would have to add lying to the day's sins.

There couldn't be any excusing his behaviour anyway. If scuttlebutt was correct, Carwood would be Easy Company's first sergeant soon, and he could not afford to have a temper like this.

The door opened and Carwood groaned, not bothering to look. The perks of being a staff sergeant were such that he only had to share a room with one other guy. The downside of only sharing a room with one guy was that when the guy was a nosy son of a bitch like Floyd Talbert, there was no escaping him. Tab was a rat terrier when it came to gossip, and his sunny outlook only partly covered a relentless need to know everything. Mostly, Tab employed his nosiness to help out his friends, be a shoulder to lean on, that kind of thing, but sympathy was the last thing Carwood needed.

He kept his eyes closed but knew better than to hope that Tab would assume he was sleeping and go away. Tab didn't even have the decency to give Carwood some space by sitting on his own bed across the converted tack room. Instead, his boots scuffed on the cement floor as he dropped into a crouch next to Carwood's shoulder. He didn't say anything.

The silence eventually broke Carwood, and he asked, "Is Don okay?"

"Startled," Tab said.

Carwood sighed. "I assume it's all over town."

"The Aldbourne Tattler is taking out a headline:"—Carwood could feel Tab making air quotes—"'Easygoing Sergeant Snaps, Bounces Cheerful Irishman Off Wall.'"

"Cheerful Irishman had it coming," Carwood muttered, and immediately felt guilty again. Malarkey had just been making a joke; he hadn't meant any harm by it. "I'll make it right with him."

Carwood didn't expect that would put Tab off, and it didn't. "I'm more worried about you, Lip. Didn't even know you _had_ a temper."

"It comes through every so often," Carwood said. He opened his eyes and looked at the wood-beamed ceiling instead of Tab. He could catch the edges of Tab's hair out of the side of his vision. "I'm fine. Just this damn wound's still bothering me." He patted his right bicep to indicate which one he meant. The cut on his face had healed into a rough pink scar, but he'd just had the stitches in his arm out and it still ached after a day of manoeuvres. "I don't know if I'll play college football like I planned."

"Football," Tab said. He didn't sound impressed. Well, that was a good start, they both knew Carwood was lying, now they could work on both pretending the believed it.

"Football," Carwood agreed.

Tab's ass thumped against the floor as he sat down next to the bed, his head dropping out of Carwood's vision. "That's funny, because Don said—"

"I don't want to hear it, Talbert!" Carwood snapped, feeling fear and shame rising up to choke him again.

"And there's that temper again."

Carwood turned his head to glare at Tab, but could only see the top of his hair. "Sorry," he said, but didn't sound or feel it.

"'Sides, Malark didn't mention your arm. What he said was, 'Hey, Sarge, how's...'"

"I know what he said," Carwood cut in before Tab could finish. It had been humiliating enough to have this conversation the first time, or not to have it.

"And then you tried to strangle him," Tab continued almost sunnily. "So, Lip, how are your balls?"

"They're fine." Carwood threw his good arm over his eyes and hoped now that he'd done his duty as a friend by checking in, that Tab would find something else to do.

Of course, he knew better. "Docs say anything about them?" Tab asked.

Carwood sighed. "No. Well, I suppose they did, I don't know. It's all been numb down there with the drugs. I got stitches all up my thigh and everything hurt so bad, I didn't really..."

"Hey, I got bayoneted in the chest," Tab said, "I know what those hospitals are like. A fellow don't exactly feel frisky, even with the pretty nurses."

"I'm married," Carwood said shortly.

"I'm engaged," Tab answered. "Doesn't mean I can't look at the nurses. But listen, have you tried it out, since the hospital sprang you?"

"Tried what out?"

"You know, the old equipment check." Carwood didn't have to look to know that Tab was miming pulling himself off. "'Cause we're roomies, and I haven't heard nothing."

"None of your business," Carwood snapped, but then he reconsidered. Maybe it would be good to be able to talk this over with someone. Tab might be nosy, but he could keep a secret, and he was as close to a peer as Carwood had now that the rest of the staff sergeants were either dead or transferred away.

The worst part about complaining was that compared to so many men he'd shipped out with, Carwood didn't have a thing to whimper about. Hell, not long after that tank shell had put Carwood in the field hospital, Tab had been stabbed by one of his own troopers. Tab had been making jokes about it by the time he joined Carwood in medical. It wasn't like Carwood couldn't fight, and really that was all he needed to be able to do until the end of the war, until he got home to Marie.

"Lip," Tab said carefully. "I was the one who checked you out. It's nothing I haven't seen."

Carwood had spent a lot of nights in that hospital trying not to think of that moment of blood-soaked terror when all he could feel was pain, and not exactly where he'd been hit. Tab had been the one to tell him he was okay. He wished that Tab could tell him the same thing now.

"You talk to the docs?" Tab asked. He seemed to be able to read Carwood's damn mind, though it wasn't as though Carwood was being subtle. Tab had likely known the problem the minute he'd talked to Malarkey, and the rest of the company probably did by now too.

"I've been afraid to," Carwood admitted. "What if they say..."

Worrying about maybe not being able to function again had to be better than knowing for sure that he wouldn't, knowing for sure that's he and Marie would never...

Tab put his hand on Carwood's shoulder. "Do you want me to take a look?"

Carwood's laugh turned into a choked sob half way through. He rubbed his fingers over his eyes and pinched away the tears. "Didn't know you were a medic," he said when he'd caught his breath again.

"I'm not," Tab said. "But I know what a fellow's supposed to look like down there."

"It all looks fine," Carwood said. He still had stitches in the thigh wound, but it was healing fast, the pool of bruising around it fading from black to purple to yellow and green. "There was swelling at first, but it's fine now, just doesn't..."

"Something's jammed up in the works," Tab said, sounding sympathetic.

"Or I'm missing a part," Carwood muttered.

"Well what've you tried?" Tab asked.

Carwood dropped his hand to his chest and turned to glare at Tab, who was looking at him with the kind of wide-eyed sincerity that couldn't be faked. "What do you think I tried?"

"Well, all I mean is, you just sort of reach down and"—he mimed the action, though too low for Carwood to see, but the twitch of his shoulder gave it away—"or did you take it slow, you know, have a drink, think about your girl, feel yourself up a little. Get in the mood."

"Thinking about my _wife_ does not help," Carwood said. "I just start... Christ, what the hell kind of good will I be to her if..." He could feel the tears again and gritted his teeth against them. A couple of swallows, and he could talk again. "I tried thinking about Jane Wyman, like we were both in a movie, and she was... but I couldn't do it then either. I just... nothing happens. No matter what I do, it's just... it's dead down there."

"No wonder you tried to strangle Don," Tab said gently. His fingers dug into Carwood's shoulder, kneading at the muscles.

"Guess I'm going to have to get used to jokes like that," Carwood said. He tried to picture it: a life ahead as someone who'd lost his manhood in the war, who'd never be able to give his wife the children she'd always talked about, that they'd planned for when he got home. Word about things like that got out in small towns. Everyone would _know_ why the Liptons didn't have kids. The women would shake their heads and say what a shame it was, and the men would just be glad it wasn't them. He'd be pitied when he wasn't being laughed at.

"Listen, I don't think it's so bad as that," Tab said. Carwood turned to look at him. He knew his eyes were wet, but Tab had seen the worst already.

"How's that?" Carwood asked. He wasn't sure he'd be able to take anyone trying to make the best of things or find the silver lining. If Tab so much as mentioned the word "adoption," Carwood was going to try to strangle him too.

"I just figure you're putting too much pressure on yourself," Tab said. "It's performance anxiety, is all. You start thinking about your wife, and all those little Liptons you want to have, and it ratchets you up so tight you can't relax. The more times you try and it doesn't work, the more worried you get, and the more difficult it is to get anything happening down there. You got too much oil in the mix, and you're choking out the engine."

Carwood could see some sense sense there. He had been pretty keyed up the last few times he'd tried, almost afraid to touch himself in case he found something was wrong. "So what should I do?"

"You try having a drink to relax?" Tab asked.

"Yeah, and then another one, and then the one after that, I couldn't do anything on a good day." The pounding head he'd had all morning from the previous night’s experimentation was a contributing factor to Malarkey's sore throat.

"What about..."

"I'm not taking drugs. What kind of example would I be for the boys?"

"Maybe your balls are busted because you let Captain Winters kick them too many times," Tab observed.

Carwood banged his head against the pillow, but he had sounded just a little too much like the company captain for a minute there. "I appreciate that you're trying to help, Tab," he said, "but you aren't helping."

Undeterred, Tab asked, "What about that girl down at the pub, Sally or Suzie or something? The guys say she's easy. Real easy if you have a pair of nylons."

Carwood was sure the guys did. "I promised Marie I wouldn't," he said. "She was worried 'cause of what the guys get up to over here, and I said I'd never do that to her. There's no woman like her anyway." He wondered if she'd want to divorce him when she found out. He didn't think so. She was the sort of woman who believed in vows that said in sickness and in health, until parted by death. Maybe Carwood should try to find some way to talk her out of that. Marie wanted to be a mother so badly. She'd talked about it since they started walking out in seventh grade.

"All right," Tab said, sounding perplexed but determined not to let his friend down. Carwood would be grateful at least someone wasn't giving up on him if he weren't so damn frightened. "All right." Tab's voice had grown more sure. "I got an idea, Lip, but you gotta promise not hit me."

"Floyd, if I ain't hit you so far, I'm not going to." It felt like the introduction into the kind of an idea that a man should face sitting up, so Carwood swung his feet to the floor and looked down at where Tab was sitting cross-legged next to the bed. "What's your idea?"

Tab didn't say anything right away, just tipped his head back to study Carwood's face like he was trying to work something out about him. "I was just thinking that maybe if someone could help you relax a bit..."

"I said..." Carwood protested.

"Shut up a second, will you? Not Suzie from the bar, but a buddy, someone who'd keep it quiet. It wouldn't mean nothing, just be friendly, you know." His grey eyes were still guileless. Anyone else in the company, and Carwood would have known they were having him on, but Tab... he didn't know.

"I'm not some kind of fairy," Carwood said, not entirely liking where this was heading.

"Never said you were," Tab said, holding his hands up. "It wouldn't be like that. It'd be helping buddy out. Like washing each other’s backs."

"I don't know," Carwood said. He had in the course of his military career touched and held other men in a lot of ways that would have raised eyebrows or gotten him a shit kicking back home. However, letting another man, even a friend, put a hand on his dick, that was something else entirely. You could say you didn't mean it like that all you wanted, but it wouldn't be how a tribunal saw it. "You volunteering?"

Tab shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but he was watching Carwood too seriously to pull it off. "If you like."

"I don't know," Carwood said again. He didn't think it was as simple as Tab was setting it out to be, but on the other hand, he didn't have a better idea, and it did make a certain amount of sense. It wouldn't be the same as hiring a girl, and he wouldn't have to risk anything on his medical record unless it didn't work. He trusted Tab with his life, why not his balls? "You're sure you're okay with this?" he asked.

"Wouldn't have offered if I weren't," Tab said with a shrug, but he looked a little too much like a deer in the headlights for Carwood. He was risking a lot just by offering, Carwood realised. It wouldn't be hard to paint Tab as a fairy and report him to the MPs. Or give him a shit kicking. Or make sure the word got out so the guys could do the same.

"This stays between you and me," Carwood said, to reassure Tab as much as himself.

"Course it does," Tab agreed. "When'd be a good time for you?"

Carwood shook his head. He didn't think he'd have the courage to stick with this plan if he had time to think about it. "Right now?" he asked. "I have the rest of the day off." Certainly no one would be suspicious if he kept his head down after what had happened with Malarkey.

"Sure," Tab said. Then they looked at each other for a minute, the fact that they'd agreed to have something like intercourse sinking in deeper by the second.

"Um," Carwood said. "Do you want me to...?" Frankly, his wedding night had been less fraught than this. He hadn't had much idea what to do then either, but Marie's mom had clued her in, and they'd had a good time working out the details. He felt his chest tighten again at the thought of Marie, of never being able to be with her like that again.

"Hang on a sec." Tab got up and pulled the blind, then locked the door and jammed a chair under the handle for good measure. "Okay, I guess this'd be easier if you took your pants off."

"Guess it would," Carwood agreed. He tugged at his laces and dragged his jump boots off before starting at his fly. He'd undressed in front of Tab in this very room a hundred times, but this one felt strange, like normal actions were piled deep with meaning. Carwood focused on the buckles and zips that would get his pants off and made a point of not looking at Tab until he did. When he was down to his shorts, he glanced up.

Tab was leaning against the wall by the door, watching him patiently, not showing any judgement.

"Have you done this before?" Carwood asked, then regretted prying.

"Checked out a buddy's war wound?" Tab asked. "Nope. Haven't done that."

Carwood had meant the question more generally, but recognised a _Do Not Enter_ sign when he saw one. He looked down at his shorts then up at Tab. "Should I just sit here, or..."

"How 'bout you lie down," Tab said.

"Okay," Carwood lay on top of the covers, his head on his pillow and stared up. This was where he'd started out, before Tab had come in, lying in the stuffy, sun-warmed billet, trying not to think about how much he wanted to come. He looked over at Tab, who was bending to take his own boots off. Carwood realised that he'd put his name to a blank cheque, and that he had no idea what Tab planned to do to him. He wouldn't back out now though. Carwood stayed where he was, hands folded across his chest, feeling less aroused than he ever had been in his life.

"Here we go," Tab said, kneeling on the end of the bed. He knees were on either side of Carwood's ankles, and he put his hands on the bed by Carwood's hips. "Let's get these shorts off you."

"The scarring's pretty..." Carwood started to warn, but Tab had tugged the shorts down to Carwood's knees before he could finish saying, "ugly."

Tab gave the inside of Carwood's thigh a professional once over and shrugged. "That's not any worse than my ribs after Smithy was done with them. Have you seen Popeye's ass?"

"Popeye's ass is pretty bad," Carwood admitted. He thought of sprinkling sulfa powder on it as the guns boomed, and Popeye kept saying how sorry he was for getting shot. Carwood had screamed when the medics put him on the stretcher. He'd wanted to stay quiet, but it'd hurt too goddamn much. The medics had shot him up after that, and he'd stayed on morphine for the better part of two weeks.

Carwood was so caught up in the memory of that hellish evac that he missed the moment when Tab decided to start touching him. He started at the feel of Tab's hand on his thigh, and Tab froze and looked up, eyes wide and questioning.

"Sorry," Carwood said. "Get stuck in my head sometimes."

"We all do," Tab told him. He stroked up the fronts of Carwood's thighs with both hands, running backwards against the hairs. It was an odd, tickling sensation, but didn't feel bad. Tab was careful not to go near the healing wound as he rested his palms on the crease where Carwood's thighs met his stomach. "You want to spread your legs a bit?" he asked.

"Okay." It took a bit of wrangling, but a few seconds later, Tab was kneeling between Carwood's ankles, and Carwood was spread open in front of him. Keeping his gaze fixed on the ceiling didn't seem to make Carwood feel any less exposed, so he looked down at Tab, bent over Carwood's exposed cock, waiting. "You want me to do anything?"

Tab shook his head. "Guess you could imagine I'm Jane Wyman," he said. "If you're up to it."

"Jane Wyman have hands like a soldier, you think?" Carwood asked. Tab's palms felt like sandpaper against the soft skin of his belly.

"God, I hope not," Tab said. "Nah, don't do anything then. Just holler if you don't like it."

Tab took a deep breath and picked up Carwood's limp cock. The contact was stunning in its intimacy, but not a lot different than a nurse adjusting him out of the way while she checked his bandages. The nurses always smiled apologetically as they handled him like so much butcher's meat, and the bolder ones made gentle jokes. They didn't stroke the length of Carwood's cock like Tab was doing now. It felt good, being touched by someone else. Carwood hadn't had anyone else's hands on him like this since that last night with Marie a year before. Thinking about Marie made him tense up, and Tab sighed faintly.

"Sorry," Carwood said, which seemed to be a pretty good summation of the whole situation.

"Hey, it's all right," Tab told him. His hand didn't stop stroking Carwood even though he wasn't getting any more turned on than when they'd started. "Look, don't think about your wife, just... I don't know, just be here, with me."

"You're not my type." It came out harsher than he'd meant. Tab was doing him an unspeakably huge favour. Carwood scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before dropping them back to his chest, and said, "I don't know what to think about. I think about Marie, I tie myself in knots; I pretend you're someone else, I tie myself in knots; I look and see it's you, I think about the MPs."

Tab chuckled. "Didn't know you felt like that about Sergeant McGrath."

"I definitely do not." McGrath was a senior MP and had a red face with lines dug in by years of yelling at everyone. The going theory was that he'd been born in MP spats. "Can you talk to me?" Carwood asked.

"Sure, okay," Tab said, he was still stroking Carwood's dick, hand moving with the absent-minded rhythm one would use to pet a cat. It still felt nice. He reached down and cupped Carwood's balls with his other hand. They were still sensitive from having been bruised in the explosion, or maybe they were just not used to having a rough-skinned hand feeling them up. Carwood tried not to let his discomfort show, but Tab was watching his face too closely. "Okay, not sure what to talk about, here," Tab said a little too casually. "I mean, I could make love to you, but then we'd have to live with it in the morning, and it's not like I can talk about the weather with my hand on your sack."

Carwood could see his point, but he wasn't sure what to do about it. The whole thing was even more awkward than he'd imagined it being, which was a high bar to clear. He almost said that he didn't want to keep going, but then he pictured explaining to the docs that he couldn't get it up, and all the medical poking and prodding that would follow.

"I'd be okay if you talked sweet," Carwood said. "It's just for now."

For the space of a heartbeat, Tab's lips parted and what could be pain flashed in his eyes, and Carwood had to wonder if...

"All right," Tab said. He petted Carwood's good leg and said, "You haven't heard nothing if you haven't heard a Talbert talk sweet, now, let's get some of this stuff going too." He reached over to the side table and picked up the bottle of the moisturising cream that Carwood rubbed on his scars. "It feels better when it's smooth and slick, don't it?"

Carwood nodded and watched Tab rub the cream between his hands to warm it. When Tab touched him again, his hands slid over his dick and sack, coating them in the cream too. Just the contact on his skin made Carwood feel better, like it could soak in and heal him.

"That feel good?" Tab asked. "It's all warm and my hand just slides over you. We'll get your engine going in no time." He pulled up the length of Carwood's cock with both hands, the cream making their skin slip past each other, and the broad width of Tab's hands completely enfolding his length. Finally, Carwood started to feel the build of pleasure. His cock started to grow under Tab's touch, and Tab smiled down at him. "See," he said. "That's more like it. That feels real good, don't it?"

"Yeah," Carwood said, more a breath than a word. "I like that."

"Sure you do," Tab said. "Everyone likes getting pulled off." He pulled again with both hands, and Carwood felt the start of a flush in his cheeks. His heart picked up, and his skin started to tingle. Everything felt more sensitive, especially the head of his cock where Tab was rolling the ball of his thumb over his slit. "You like your nuts played with too?" Before Carwood could answer, Tab was gently stroking his fingernails over Carwood's balls. The lightness of the touch compared to the firm grip on his dick sent sparks up behind Carwood's eyes. His hips moved almost of their own accord, pushing up into Tab's hands. "Oh you do like that," Tab said. "You look so good when you're like this."

Carwood couldn't see what was good about it. He knew how he looked, his mouth open and his skin blotchy and red. His hair would be starting to clump with sweat. He could feel it sticking his shirt to his chest and beading on his temples. The salt stung his scars, and he wished that Tab couldn't see them, so he turned his face away.

"None of that," Tab said. His hands slowed in their caresses, one tight around the base of Carwood's cock and the other still only just touching his balls. "You're a fine looking man, Carwood. Any lady'd be pleased to have you. You must have had them lining up for you back in West Virginia, and you'll be breaking hearts all the way home when they find out you're taken. Handsome guy like you, I don't know how you keep 'em off you."

It was all bullshit, and Carwood knew it, but Tab's sincerity and the way his hands started to stroke up Carwood's dick and across his balls to the rhythm of his speech made it difficult to see the words for a lie. Carwood would have flushed with embarrassment, but he was too turned on for it to show. He moaned softly and his hips rolled up into Tab's touch again. It was such a relief to feel like this again: the growing pleasure, the potency. He wanted something to thrust into, something firmer and more encompassing than Tab's hand. Carwood clenched his hands into fists and tried not to whine, but a needy whimper still got past his lips.

"You like that?" Tab asked. "Feels good to be hard again, huh? You're a big guy. Can see how you miss this. Touching you feels real nice. Wish we could do more, but I know you're saving up for all those little Lipton's your going to have." He squeezed Carwood's balls lightly, and it still hurt, but along with the hard stroke up his cock the pain didn't matter any more. It was just more feeling, more sensation to go with Tab's honeyed words.

"Harder," Carwood moaned.

The cream was soaking into their skins, and Tab's touch was getting rougher with more drag as he pulled up Carwood's dick. Tab had gun callouses all up his fingers and the pads of his palm, hands rough from hard work, but he was so gentle touching Carwood. Tab was stroking just as hard as Carwood liked, keeping up a steady pace while Carwood tried to push up against his hand. Tab's lips were parted, he had colour in his cheeks. Carwood thought his eyes were darker, but it was difficult to look at his face while he was being touched like this.

"Please, I need," Carwood said.

He was so close to coming. The steady stroking over his cock and the hand on his balls was drawing him up and up towards orgasm, but it was just a little short of being enough. Carwood grabbed two handfuls of the blanket under him and closed his eyes, willing himself to come in Tab's hand. Shutting the world out and focusing on the slick warmth around his cock, the sudden burn of pleasure as Tab pushed on the soft place below the head, the tug of Tab's callouses on the hairs on Carwood's nuts. He was so close, but the weeks of frustration and fear were still holding him back. His balls hurt just a little too much. Carwood moaned again and jerked his hips up again and again, desperate to come. The anxiety was pushing him further away though, and he could feel the pleasure falling away.

"Dammit," Carwood muttered. He'd been so close. Tab had done everything he could, but he couldn't help if Carwood was just broken. He could feel tears in his eyes again, and the reality of what was happening tumbling towards him.

"Hey, easy," Tab said, "Easy there. You're doing okay, big guy. You're just fine. Okay, I know this wasn't what we said, but hold on a moment. I'll look after you."

Carwood still had his eye closed and didn't see what Tab was doing until his mouth was hot on his dick. Tab took a firm hold around the base of Carwood's cock, his fingers tight and slippery, rolled his balls in his palm, and sucked Carwood down until Tab's lips touched his fingers.

Carwood's eyes flew open and he raised his head to look down, but all he could see was again the top of Tab's head. Tab was sucking hard as he drew his mouth back up Carwood's cock, running his tongue along the bottom. The wet heat of his mouth, and the thrill of being sucked off for the first time were too much.

"Oh, God," Carwood moaned and came hard. He clutched the sheets and tried to hold himself back so he didn't choke Tab, but that only drew things out. He came in a rush in Tab's mouth, then again when Tab sucked lightly and ran his tongue over the head of Carwood's dick. Carwood kept thinking it was over only to have Tab hum against his cock or stroke his balls. Then Carwood would gasp again, and again try to thrust up into Tab's mouth.

He felt like he was floating out of control of his body, and he hoped he wasn't hurting Tab. He couldn't believe that Tab was sucking him off. He was doing it like he knew his way around another man's dick too, all sweet, subtle touches and care.

Finally, Carwood lay still. His body hummed pleasantly with satisfaction and the aftershocks of pleasure. He could feel Tab's tongue on his dick and pushed at his hair. "You don't have to do that no more," he said. "I..."

Tab sat up and made a face, smacking his lips. "That cream the docs gave you tastes something awful," he said.

"You didn't have to do that for me," Carwood protested. "That's wasn't... you didn't have to."

Tab shrugged and reached for his canteen. "No, but I don't mind it. You sure looked like you needed it."

As Tab knelt up and tipped his head back to drink, Carwood's eyes ran down his throat—which gleamed with perspiration—to the way his shirt was clinging to his chest, to the bulge in his trousers. Sucking Carwood off had turned Tab on, and Carwood hadn't even touched him.

Carwood licked his lips, tasting the salt of his own sweat and wondering what another man's come would taste like. He didn't think he really wanted to know, but he couldn't let Tab alone after what he'd done. "Want me to help you out with that?" he asked.

"Mmm?" Tab asked. He looked down at Carwood, then followed Carwood's gaze to his own hard on. "Oh, that. Naw, I'm all right."

"I wouldn't mind," Carwood insisted. "It's just helping out a buddy."

Tab rolled off the bed and stood, making more space between them than he had since he'd locked the door. "Lip," he said, "That's, well, that's kind of you to offer, but I'll look after myself."

Carwood opened his mouth to push the point, but he found he couldn't. What Tab minded was his own business, and clearly he had strong feelings about being touched like that.

"Okay," Carwood said, "But I owe you one. I can't say how much I owe you." Suddenly he felt choked up again, thinking of all the time he's spent worrying that Marie would be disappointed in him. That was all past now, thanks to Tab, and the relief was overwhelming.

"Who knew you were a soppy son of a bitch," Tab said fondly. "Come on, Lip, put your pants back on and wash up. I told Linda I'd take her out for a drink."

"Right," Carwood said. He rolled to sit on the edge of the bed and tugged his shirt over his head, meaning to change it for a fresh one.

He'd wondered if it would be strange to be naked in front of Tab after what he'd done, but Tab just turned to fixing his hair in their shared shaving mirror, like he always did before going on a date with his fiancée.

Carwood dressed quickly, and tried to ignore how he felt a little weak in the knees from having just come that hard. He felt like the guys would look at him and know, but as he washed his face and combed his hair he knew they wouldn't. It hadn't meant anything, except as a favour from a friend, a friend who'd bound his wounds when he'd gotten hit, and had helped Carwood with them now same as he'd change a bandage.

The favour to be returned—Carwood understood as he watched Tab primp in front of the mirror—by Carwood never asking about the strange look in Tab's eyes when they started, and never speculating about why his mouth had been so skilled, or Tab's own cock had gotten so hard. That was none of Carwood's business and never would be.

"I need to go find Malarkey and apologise," Carwood said.

"What are you going to tell him?" Tab asked. He finessed a spit curl down his forehead, and settled his garrison cap on top of his coiffure.

Carwood shrugged. He was just going to have to feel embarrassed about this one. "Something about my football career."

Tab laughed. "That sounds believable."

"Better than the truth," Carwood told, but he didn't feel it weighing on him any more. He checked his good shoulder against Tab's, and Tab shoved back lightly.

"Let's go," Tab said, and Carwood followed him out.


End file.
